In what is being billed as the biggest concert ever to be staged in Sarajevo, U2 is about to fulfil the promise Bono made to the city shortly after Bosnia's war ended in 1995.
The Irish group's concert in Kosevo stadium tomorrow will be the first major pop spectacular in Sarajevo since the war ended, and is already providing welcome relief to a people tired of politics and of years under siege.
In a telephone interview with Bosnian state television yesterday, Bono said that if rock'n'roll could be summed up in one word, it would be liberation.
"Music doesn't know political divides and music has a joy that ignores borders and even defies borders. This is what we've always stood for as a group."
He said the band could relate to Bosnia because of the long-running dispute in Northern Ireland.
"We are trying to wrestle our world from the fools of the past and give it to the wise men of the future."
Kosevo stadium is being transformed by hundreds of workers, 450 of them just to build the stage and sound system.
Special trains will bring fans from across Bosnia, and thousands are expected to arrive from other former Yugoslav republics.
The organisational board for the concert contains most of the government of the Muslim-Croat Federation which makes up half of present-day Bosnia, including the head of the country's collective presidency, Mr Alija Izetbegovic.
Mr Izetbegovic told Bosnian state television: "This concert . . . will not only be an event for Sarajevo but I could say without exaggeration it is an event for the entire planet."